“How valuable are we talking?” Gora asked carefully, slowly turning to face Ava. She kept Nemesis in her peripheral vision. The creature appeared to be behaving itself, but that didn’t mean Gora would turn her back on it.

“As much again as we’re paying you for this delve. At least.”

“That’s a decent chunk of change, but once we split it…” Gora replied, shrugging.

“No, that’s each. After we split it” Ava said, a wide grin on her face.

Gora’s eyebrows raised. “Oh… That’s… significant. Okay, you have my attention. Explain.”

Ava took a deep breath. “Back in the Academy, there are a significant number of researchers studying the Nightmare from the comfort of their offices. Lazy, old fuddy-duddies who have plenty of research grant money but don’t want to do any of the legwork. Occasionally they contract delvers to bring them back live specimens for study.”

Gora felt a sudden sharp pain in her ankle and looked down to see Zaxier prodding her with his claws.

“I have heard of these so-called ‘research grants’. Now pick me up, you big oaf, I wish to join the conversation.”

Rolling her eyes, Gora reached down and scooped up the cat, who made himself comfortable on one of her giant forearms.

“I’ve been involved with some of these live captures before” Gora admitted. “They paid well, but the work was dangerous.”

“Brilliant! Then you know what I am talking about! How did your specimens act while you had them imprisoned?” Ava asked.

“Massively fucking ornery. If they weren’t fully restrained, they’d happily chew off a limb if that meant they could get in close enough for a single bite.”

“What I would like to know” Zaxier interrupted, looking Ava in the eyes, “is why Nemesis would be valuable. We have no contract for her retrieval. At best we’d receive a pittance.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong, Zaxier. Look at her” Ava said and nodded towards their guest.

Nemesis was busy trying to fend off Bob, who was doing his best to offer her more of the berries. She looked more and more harried as he kept holding the pile of purple fruits out at her and she had to keep pushing it away, constantly speaking in that weird sounding language of hers.

“What is she saying?” Gora asked.

“No idea. That last psychic blast shorted out the spell” Ava replied. “But does she seem hostile to you?”

“Decidedly not” Zaxier admitted as Nemesis buried her face in her hands to stop Bob forcing a berry into her mouth. “But what is the relevance of that?”

“The relevance, my dear cat, is that she’s like no other creature that has ever been encountered here. She’s docile. Willing to communicate. She can be studied, safely, without thirty layers of magical warding interfering with every reading you take” Ava said. “Even better, she’s exactly what those stuffy old mages are looking for. They just don’t know it yet.”

“How do you know that?” Gora asked sceptically.

“I worked for a while as an assitant under one of these professors. While I was preparing for the delve, I… borrowed a number of his research papers” Ava admitted. “There is currently a big debate going on about two opposing theories with regards to the origin of the aggression in Nightmare Spawn. She might be the answer as to which one is right. Whoever gets her first gets a chance to skew the results in their favour. Or make them disappear entirely.”

“As long as we don’t disappear entirely…” Gora grumbled. “The Academy wields a lot of clout in Grailmane. Getting involved in their politics doesn’t sound like a good idea.”

“Hah. Don’t flatter yourself. You aren’t important enough for the Academy to bother eliminating. Cheaper to just pay us to go away.”

“I can see it” Zaxier admitted after a few moments of thought. “She is certainly unique. And the Academy is always looking for odd or unique specimens for study. Usually they are quite willing to pay, and they don’t betray out of principle like the Cults.”

“Even split four ways we will all walk away rich” Ava confirmed with a nod.

“Four ways? What about Bob?” Zaxier interjected.

“Pets don’t get cuts. He’s your responsibility” Ava replied immediately.

The cat glared at her for a few moments, before relenting.

“Fair enough. Gora? What say you? I strongly suspect Samual will abide by your decision in this matter. The boy has so far shown a strong predilection to following your lead.”

Gora scratched her head, looking at Nemesis. Bob had finally left her alone to just sit quietly against the wall.

Originally, she’d thought Nemesis was dangerous because, well, everything here was dangerous. Everything was some form of nightmare made flesh, but at least they’d been predictable. Yet she’d been the exact opposite, doing the exact opposite of what they expected at every turn. She certainly didn’t look dangerous now, with her legs curled up around her and her eyes half closed. If anything, she looked sleepy.

Unless it was all an act…

“How do we know she isn’t planning on killing us in our sleep?” Gora asked, turning back to their huddle.

“Oh, stop it, already!” Ava demanded. “You’ve been absolutely paranoid about the poor thing when she hasn’t made a single aggressive move! She’s done nothing but flee and hide from us when we try to kill her and somehow that’s been twisted into some grand evil scheme in your silly little brain.”

“Ava, I’ve been fooled before by these things. The more they try to pretend to be harmless, the more dangerous…” Gora began, but Ava cut her off.

“So, if we assume that she’s hostile, it’s clear that she’s hostile. By that logic, weak old ladies are the most terrifying force in the universe. Look, there’s your ‘single most dangerous creature you’ve ever encountered’” Ava said and pointed.

“You haven’t met my mom” Gora mumbled but turned to look anyway.

Nemesis had somehow fallen asleep, upright, with her head resting against the wall. Her soft snores could just barely be heard over the crackle of the campfire.

“Careful, she might drool you to death.”

Gora sighed. It was true. Even among her own experiences, she’d never seen anything act as friendly and non-aggressive as Nemesis had. It made her feel a little stupid for having named her ‘Nemesis’.

“Alright, fine. But on one condition.”

“What?” Ava asked.

“You babysit her while I go take a nap.”

TEAR THEIR SKIN AND GOUGE THEIR EYES!

“Ah! I’m awake!”

Rita rubbed her eyes and looked around. She’d fallen asleep, only to be woken up by Alice’s latest little mental tantrum. How long had she been out? An hour? Two? More?

The only person visible was PJ, who was sitting next to the fire, staring at her. Judging from the book on her lap and the look on her face, she had been reading until Rita startled her.

“Sorry…” Rita said in a lower voice. “Is everyone else sleeping?”

The woman smiled at Rita, saying something in her language before shrugging and shaking her head.

“Oh… you can’t understand me anymore. Glowy thing wore off, I suppose” she sighed.

Damn! She couldn’t believe she’d just fallen asleep like that! The other guy, the one the cat had been sitting on, had tried to force-feed her more berries when she started dozing off, but one had been plenty. She’d eventually had to risk extending her teeth just to get him to back off.

Luckily nobody else had seen him jump, she had a suspicion it would have resulted in weapons being drawn again.

And then she’d just crashed. All the adrenaline and terror that she’d been running on since she woke up finally ran out and she was out like a light.

She had no idea how long it had been since she’d woken up, soaking wet, in her bed, but it had to have been eight hours at least. A glimpse outside through the window revealed the same grey clouds covering the sky and an unchanged light level. She suspected that whatever this place was, it didn’t have normal sunlight, and rather existed in a kind of perpetual grey twilight.

Rita sighed. It was time to face the truth. She wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Wherever this place was, it wasn’t Earth. Somehow, an entire city’s worth of buildings had been moved, basically overnight. Or at least, in the time she was passed out from… wait, what exactly had she passed out from?

She tried to think back. What was the last thing she remembered? But trying to run through her memories resulted in a sudden, blinding headache.

“Ahhh...!” she said, wincing and holding her head.

PJ looked up from her book again and asked something, a look of concern on her face.

“No, no, I’m fine” Rita replied, waving her off. “Trying to remember stuff just makes my brain explode, apparently.”

PJ shrugged and returned to her book.

Rita could remember her past without a problem. Childhood memories, college, her parents, all those were fine. But trying to remember anything vaguely recent resulted in agony, with the memories scattered and confused, their exact order difficult to recall. She couldn’t even remember which of the recent weekends she could recall was the latest.

“Hey, PJ, umm, do you have any idea what year this is?” she asked.

The woman looked up from her book again but shook her head as she replied with an exasperated tone in her incomprehensible language.

“Right. ‘Don’t understand you.’ Got it” Rita replied with a heavy sigh. She slumped back against the wall. “And you don’t feel like doing the blue light thingy again.”

She’d found people, and that was great, but she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. They could apparently do some kind of… it was magic, wasn’t it? It was totally magic. In her childhood she’d gone through same phases as everyone else her age, where books of witches and wizards entertained her for hours on end.

Then she’d outgrown that sort of nonsense. Magic was nothing but fairy tales and childhood imagination. Except, apparently not anymore. Now it was glowing blue vials and sparkling, hypnotic patterns in the air.

And talking cats, somehow.

Rita had so many questions, she didn’t even know where to start. Everything was basically one giant question that could basically be summed up as ‘WHAT THE FUCK?’

Absentmindedly, she pulled the tiny little backpack that had somehow endured up to this point off of her shoulders and dug out her dead phone. Even though she knew it was dead, it was something to do. Something to occupy her mind and keep her hands busy.

What she did not expect to find, was the little charging symbol on the phone’s screen.

For a few seconds she just stated at it, dumbfounded. Then she checked that her phone was indeed not plugged in. But no, a cable hadn’t miraculously appeared in the time since she’d taken it out of her bag.

Then she started laughing.

PJ looked up with a frown at the noise she was making, but Rita didn’t care. Somehow her phone was charging, and she wasn’t going to question it. Maybe it was one of those remote charging panels somewhere near her, or maybe it was just magic. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had a working phone.

She frantically pressed the power button, willing it to boot up faster. PJ said something, but Rita ignored her. She could phone for help! She could go back home! She could… get a plastic surgeon to fix her bottom half. It would probably be a big job, but that didn’t matter! She could do it!

After fat-fingering her password the first time, she managed to unlock her phone and her heart soared as she saw it had three full bars for the signal! Even the battery was at 10% and ticked over to 11% while she watched.

Then an incoming call alert popped up.

Rita stared at it in puzzlement. The caller was just three small squares, not even ‘private’ or a random number. It looked like when someone sent you weird Chinese emoticons that your phone couldn’t understand.

By this time, PJ had put her book aside and was staring at the buzzing phone in Rita’s hand with curiosity and some mild apprehension. She asked something that Rita couldn’t understand.

“I have no idea who it is” Rita answered anyway, safe in the knowledge that PJ couldn’t understand her either. “The caller ID is just three squares. Anyone you know?”

PJ was getting to her feet when Rita shrugged and hit the answer button.

“Hello?” she asked once she’d pressed the phone to her ear.

C̵̤̱̈́͑̆͌͛͊̿O̴̤̮̗̮̝̳̒M̵̱̞̹̉̍͌̍̊͋̎̋̚Ĕ̷̪̆͊̈̍́̚͠͝ ̸̨͔̪̟̼̹͒̈̋͘̕T̸̡̼̘̩͖̖̊̍̔̒̐͋͜͜͠O̸̰̞͙̲̘̔̈ ̴̬̫̞̣̮͓̩̽́̎͛́́̈́̀͜ͅͅM̵̲̫̹̮̜͗̌͒̌̽̄̓͋̕ͅẼ̴̺͈̞̳͖̼̼̭̏̈́̈́̀̔̅͘͜

The sound that came over her phone was like a hundred nails scraping over a blackboard. Yet, inside the cacophony, she could just barely make out words.

Not that Rita stopped to listen. She squeaked and dropped the phone in sheer fright, before fumbling to try and catch it. All she succeeded in doing was knocking it away, sending it flying towards the campfire. When it hit the rim of the divot in the floor, the noise abruptly cut off with an audible crack. It bounced several more times before coming to rest by PJ’s feet.

“What the hell was that?” Rita demanded at the air. “Who the fuck phones someone and does that?”

Whatever it was, it had set Alice off. She was going crazy in Rita’s head, almost incoherent with fury as she spouted vitriol.

PJ stooped down and carefully picked the phone between thumb and forefinger. When she slowly turned it around in her hands, Rita had to suppress a groan. The screen was dark and completely shattered.

Looks like she wasn’t going to be phoning for rescue after all.